Democrats Directed Back To The Future

December 22, 1985|By Steve Neal.

U.S. Rep. William O. Lipinski, a keen student of political trends, thinks the Democratic Party should go back to the future.

Lipinski, a former Chicago alderman who is still the Democratic committeeman of the Southwest Side 23d Ward, has been making the argument for months that Democrats must go back to their New Deal roots if their party is to break its losing streak in presidential elections.

A major reason Ronald Reagan shattered Franklin D. Roosevelt`s political coalition is that the Gipper made a winning appeal for the vote of ethnic Democrats in northern industrial states and received a strong vote among blue- collar and Catholic voters.

Lipinski contends that the key to Democratic successes in 1986 and beyond is recapturing those traditional Democrats who have been switching to Reagan and other GOP candidates. Strategists in both major political parties have designated the Southern states and the ethnic neighborhoods of the industrial North as the central battlegrounds of the 1988 campaign.

Earlier this year, Democratic National Chairman Paul Kirk appointed the Polish-American Chicago congressman as cochairman of the Democratic National Committee`s Council on Ethnic Americans. Sen. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona is the council`s other cochairman.

Since then, Lipinski has signed up some of his most prominent congressional colleagues as members of the council`s advisory board, including U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski of Chicago, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and U.S. Rep. Tony Coehlo (D., Calif.), chairman of the House Democratic Campaign Committee.

Lipinski also scored a political coup with a recent legislative victory:

When ethnic Americans of European ancestry weren`t mentioned in legislation designed to eliminate discrimination in the Federal Civil Service, Lipinski broadened the legislation to include them.

In a letter to be mailed this week, Lipinski is seeking the support of state Democratic chairmen for his ethnic council. He is also planning to recruit support among state and local Democratic officials across the country. ``If the Democratic Party is going to reverse this trend, I believe that the special concerns of ethnic Americans must be more emphatically and specifically addressed,`` Lipinski has said. ``Unfortunately, since the mid-1960s, ethnic Americans have been taken for granted or ignored.``

For starters, Lipinski says that the national Democratic Party should reclaim the flag by demonstrating more resolve and firmness on national defense and U.S. dealings with the Soviet Union. In domestic policy, Lipinski says that the Democratic Party should address the concerns of ethnic Americans on such issues as abortion, school prayer, tuition tax credits and affirmative action.

``Ethnic Americans are oftentimes called `bigots` and `racists` by liberal Democrats,`` Lipinski says. ``But we are the `bigots` and `racists`

who on many occasions have fought and helped pass civil rights legislation and who have fought for and helped pass the Voting Rights Act in Congress.``

The Southwest Side congressman is among the handful of Democratic organization regulars who are on friendly terms with Mayor Harold Washington, though their relationship is, in part, a result of Lipinski`s independence from the mayor`s archrival, Cook County Democratic Chairman Edward Vrdolyak.

Within the local Democratic organization, Lipinski has long pushed for increased representation for blacks at the countywide level.

Though Lipinski faces a difficult task in trying to mobilize ethnics behind Democratic candidates and in gaining the attention of national party leaders, few politicians are better equipped for the job. Lipinski has a decade of experience as political chief of a ward where 95 percent of the residents are ethnic Americans.

For three years, he also has represented the Southwest Side 5th Congressional District, in which 75 percent of his constituents are ethnic Americans. Last fall, Lipinski received 64 percent of the vote in winning re- election, while Reagan was getting 58 percent of the vote in the Democratic congressional district.

Lipinski, a former recreation supervisor in the Chicago Park District, runs what is generally viewed as one of the best political organizations in the city. He is a staunch ally of Cook County State`s Atty. Richard Daley, whom he supported in the 1983 Democratic mayoral primary. It was with Daley`s support that he wiped out former U.S. Rep. John Fary in the 1982 Democratic primary.

Over the next year, Lipinski is likely to play an important behind-the-scenes role in the 1987 mayoral campaign. If Lipinski can enlist enough ethnic Democratic officials to demonstrate his council`s political clout, he may also have some influence on his party`s choice for 1988, which may not be good news for Sen. Gary Hart (D., Colo.), who showed little appeal to ethnic voters in his 1984 presidential campaign.